studs up:I posted several times in this thread and I don't think any of my posts were tagged as funny or smart. My self-esteem is really starting to trend down. I called my mom and she said you guys have to give me some kind of trophy for participating, or, there will be lawyers.

You'll only get a reply if you use an apostrophe incorrectly. You will occasionally (rarely) get a reply to a relevant post, but...troll.

/I typically get a reply for one out of every 30 posts or so//for having an apostrophe in the wrong place...

factoryconnection:What I don't like is how f*cking lazy all those games made the gym teachers out to be. I spent 13 years going to gym class and not one of those motherf*ckers ever took the time to show anyone the proper way to throw or catch sh*t. It took me an hour or two to teach my 5-year-old perfect throwing form that I learned from a YouTube video. You can't tell me all those 20-year-veteran jocks couldn't explain a bit of body mechanics.

That's so true, I never even thought about that. So after watching me miss the basket time after time after time, it never even occurred to the teacher to show me how to throw the damn thing correctly.

you have pee hands:Depends if they're using those shiatty plastic $5 volleyballs that public schools get.

Sure...but you gotta hang back towards the back at the beginning and if you have any peripheral vision at all, you should be able to prevent anything from hitting your face. Could just be a freak hit though, I suppose. I mean, people die from tripping and falling on the ground sometimes and sometimes people don't die after falling out of a plane. Still no reason to hate the game. Dodgeball is great no matter what you play with.

Now that I'm a Grandfather, I will make damn sure that my Grandkids grow up learning how to enjoy the outside more than inside*. This was written when my Dad was 10. I think it's as great a guideline now as it was then and I will do my best to make sure they master most if not all of them. My Boys have conquered many of them but sadly not all (my fault).

*If we could get a decent rain, I could stock my cattle pond with some hybrid bluegill...they'd be great catchin' size by the time The Twins turn 5!

vudukungfu:Screw sport.Teach them Judo in elementary school and give classes in yoga, too.Let them learn Aikidowrestling in Middle school and Kungfuboxing in highschool. Also teach logic.Of course, the GOP doesn't want people who can disarm an asshole with a box cutter and can see through a bullshait reason to tax people to vote, so that will never happen.

I've only had a couple PE teachers that actually did any kind of teaching. As in, this is how you shoot a basketball, throw a baseball, etc. But at the time most kids already knew how to do that kind of stuff, so I can see why a teacher might gloss over the details.

Was going to come here to complain that I really don't see what people's problem with dodgeball is, but then I realized we never actually played it in high school. In elementary school and junior high sure, and it was a blast, but in high school it was always basketball or running laps.

bearcats1983:Seniors at my high school had the option to take lifetime fitness (90% of male athletes were in the class) or aerobics as an elective.

Lifetime fitness was amazing. We had a bowling alley across the street, so if you paid the $35 course fee, you could take lifetime fitness and go bowling every day for six weeks with free shoe rental and lane usage. Great for winter.

/also had racquet and team sports and others//took PE every year since I had enough regular courses that I could've graduated as a junior, might as well have a fun part of the day///always at the end of the day - no, I'm not showering at school with a bunch of dudes

I was TERRIBLE at PE and I always hated team sports because I ALWAYS let the team down. As a kid, you care about that shiat. Now that I have a son, I think it's important to do at least a little team sports because if you don't do any, you lack understanding of the team dynamic. It's a rare individual that does not WORK in the REAL WORLD on a team. Fark exercise, this is about life.

Magnanimous_J:factoryconnection: What I don't like is how f*cking lazy all those games made the gym teachers out to be. I spent 13 years going to gym class and not one of those motherf*ckers ever took the time to show anyone the proper way to throw or catch sh*t. It took me an hour or two to teach my 5-year-old perfect throwing form that I learned from a YouTube video. You can't tell me all those 20-year-veteran jocks couldn't explain a bit of body mechanics.

That's so true, I never even thought about that. So after watching me miss the basket time after time after time, it never even occurred to the teacher to show me how to throw the damn thing correctly.

I love these articles - all the jocks relive their glory days of abusing the little/fat/shy/weak kids, and call everyone who disagrees with them a pussy.

Ok, well how about we step it up a notch...instead of Dodge Ball, let the kids play Paint Ball. Even the little kid can pull a trigger, and being the oversized glandular freak means you make a bigger target. Of course, many of the jocks would come home covered from head to toe with bruises and crying about how all the nerds ganged up on him!

IAmRight:Sure...but you gotta hang back towards the back at the beginning and if you have any peripheral vision at all, you should be able to prevent anything from hitting your face. Could just be a freak hit though, I suppose. I mean, people die from tripping and falling on the ground sometimes and sometimes people don't die after falling out of a plane. Still no reason to hate the game. Dodgeball is great no matter what you play with.

Maybe the old roll a ball near the middle line and then try to peg whoever goes for it in the head move.

/Our dumbest sport was softball because the school didn't have any gloves, so you brought your own or played barehanded. Maybe I just went to a shiatty school.

I do remember getting very specific instruction on shooting basketballs and tennis racket swings, so I will give credit for that. But throwing a baseball, softball, volleyball, or dodgeball? Nope. I'm making up for that with my kids. Well, I'm dubious about my middle daughter, though she is only three.

nunyadang:Despite her lack of dodge-ball skills she looks like she made it through life ok so far.

[www.jessicaolien.com image 418x428]

She's hot and skinny; I can see how she might have sucked at sports.

studs up:I posted several times in this thread and I don't think any of my posts were tagged as funny or smart. My self-esteem is really starting to trend down. I called my mom and she said you guys have to give me some kind of trophy for participating, or, there will be lawyers.

If it makes you feel better, I've been coaching youth sports for six seasons and we don't do trophies unless someone wins a tournament. We'll do "attaboys" for hustle and whatnot, but it is recognition of achievement, not merely presence. However, the coach on the baseball team gave at least 20 pitches per at-bat to this one kid yesterday (max is six) instead of just sending him along. It was painful for everyone involved, and fortunately the kid hasn't developed a sense of shame yet.

mattharvest:So, her whole argument is "I sucked at sports, so sports suck"?

I'm only moderately athletic, rowed crew in college but wasn't brilliant at it, etc. and know that my natural talents lie more in intellectual activities and so that's probably why I worked on them more, but where do you get the ego to think intellectual gifts are intrinsically better than physical?

The sheer chutzpah of acting like kids who are born 'smarter' are somehow better than kids who are born more 'athletic' is just insane, as if the two are somehow opposite ends of a spectrum. They're completely distinct characteristics. Kids should be praised for either or both, teaching them to love what they can do well so that they'll work to improve those things and hopefully achieve good or great things. Telling athletic kids that they suck because they aren't smart enough is no better than telling smart kids they suck because they're not athletic enough.

I think you may be taking too harsh a view- I think her point is less "sports suck" than " "there are or ought to be other ways to teach phys ed than team sports".

To use an academic comparison, most high schools have different levels of math- if you suck at math, you get put in a basic class, if you excel, they place you in advanced calculus. In gym, it's one-size-fits-all, and, unfortunately, what works for an athlete can be very alienating to someone lacking in physical prowess. As one of those people (not yet thirty & I've never been able to touch my toes in my life) a good class on stretching and some kind of progressive strength &/or endurance training would have been a lot more useful than five laps around the gym, gasping, followed by half an hour of trying to avoid a puck to the balls in floor hockey,

We've tried to set different academic levels so all kids get at least a basic education, why not try the same with phys ed?

bearcats1983:When did this "I'm a whiny biatch" mentality become so popular and accepted in our society? I mean, wanting to ban something just because someone may get their feelings hurt? Are hurt feelings illegal now?

We played medic ball. Each team had two medics that wore a mesh shirt. when you got hit, you would sit where you got hit. A medic could come over and drag you back behind the line and you were in the game again. So you would target their medics, because once you get both medics, no one can get back in. And in turn you would try to protect your medics.

it added some strategy.

We played this too, but the medics had a small square 4 wheeled scooter-type thing. They had to sit the "out" kid on the scooter and then pull him/her off. It made it interesting because then the medic could use the scooter as a shield when they were running out to rescue someone, but were defenseless when dragging someone back to the side.

Private_Citizen:I love these articles - all the jocks relive their glory days of abusing the little/fat/shy/weak kids, and call everyone who disagrees with them a pussy.

Ok, well how about we step it up a notch...instead of Dodge Ball, let the kids play Paint Ball. Even the little kid can pull a trigger, and being the oversized glandular freak means you make a bigger target. Of course, many of the jocks would come home covered from head to toe with bruises and crying about how all the nerds ganged up on him!

PC LOAD LETTER:Dodgeball was validation for bullies. I see some folks think it was all fun and that those who got pounded "deserved it". And people wonder why kids want to kill their classmates. I know I did, and I am still not exactly sure how I am not in prison for life.

Now as an adult, I would LOVE to play it. Mainly because I am rather strong and have a massive tolerance for pain.

This came to mind immediately upon reading your tale.

"Look at the strength in your body, the desire in your heart, I gave you this! "

It was the dodgeball that made you strong, that made you impervious to pain. Embrace it.

Private_Citizen:I love these articles - all the jocks relive their glory days of abusing the little/fat/shy/weak kids, and call everyone who disagrees with them a pussy.

Ok, well how about we step it up a notch...instead of Dodge Ball, let the kids play Paint Ball. Even the little kid can pull a trigger, and being the oversized glandular freak means you make a bigger target. Of course, many of the jocks would come home covered from head to toe with bruises and crying about how all the nerds ganged up on him!

Private_Citizen:I love these articles - all the jocks relive their glory days of abusing the little/fat/shy/weak kids, and call everyone who disagrees with them a pussy.

Ok, well how about we step it up a notch...instead of Dodge Ball, let the kids play Paint Ball. Even the little kid can pull a trigger, and being the oversized glandular freak means you make a bigger target. Of course, many of the jocks would come home covered from head to toe with bruises and crying about how all the nerds ganged up on him!

IAmRight:you have pee hands: Depends if they're using those shiatty plastic $5 volleyballs that public schools get.

Sure...but you gotta hang back towards the back at the beginning and if you have any peripheral vision at all, you should be able to prevent anything from hitting your face. Could just be a freak hit though, I suppose. I mean, people die from tripping and falling on the ground sometimes and sometimes people don't die after falling out of a plane. Still no reason to hate the game. Dodgeball is great no matter what you play with.

/probably shouldn't play with golf balls or baseballs

I would suggest not playing dodgeball on your knees upon those folding gymnastics mats. We had to do that in high school PE once, after we'd finished with the gymnastics unit. (I was hilariously, but not surprisingly, awful at gymnastics.) It was knee dodgeball, played with Nerf balls. You'd think that would be the most harmless iteration of dodgeball ever, but you can get some painful rug burn doing that. At least my glasses were in no danger, but my knees really stung for a few days.

AngryJailhouseFistfark:PC LOAD LETTER: Dodgeball was validation for bullies. I see some folks think it was all fun and that those who got pounded "deserved it". And people wonder why kids want to kill their classmates. I know I did, and I am still not exactly sure how I am not in prison for life.

Now as an adult, I would LOVE to play it. Mainly because I am rather strong and have a massive tolerance for pain.

This came to mind immediately upon reading your tale.[joeskythedungeonbrawler.files.wordpress.com image 320x240]

"Look at the strength in your body, the desire in your heart, I gave you this! "

It was the dodgeball that made you strong, that made you impervious to pain. Embrace it.

Sucking at sports gets you teased and that makes the author of TFA weep. Let's make academics into a competition where everyone can demolish and belittle the stupid people. That should balance it out.

Since I was on the tennis and track team, I didn't have to play with the other kids. The gym teacher let all the athletes use the weight room or run the track if they didn't want to play dodgeball or line dance or whatever.

Four years of soccer as a kid and being a half back/back up goalie for all of them makes one quite the terror in a game where you can eliminate people by catching things they throw at you. At least that's how we played it in school.

AbbeySomeone:Private_Citizen: I love these articles - all the jocks relive their glory days of abusing the little/fat/shy/weak kids, and call everyone who disagrees with them a pussy.

Ok, well how about we step it up a notch...instead of Dodge Ball, let the kids play Paint Ball. Even the little kid can pull a trigger, and being the oversized glandular freak means you make a bigger target. Of course, many of the jocks would come home covered from head to toe with bruises and crying about how all the nerds ganged up on him!

And we couldn't have the jocks looking like pussies, could we?

You got smeared and are still seething with resentment, right?

Nah, I was (and am) a martial artist, so I could catch the ball pretty well. Made it the finals in the school wide Dodge Ball tourney even - I just wouldn't target the little kids like the sociopaths did (besides, the more athletic ones are a bigger threat).

Still, if you level the playing field, and give the little kid the same chance as the big kid, I think some of the bigger kids would have to quickly develop strategies for coping with losing. And from what I saw, there was no whiny biatch quite like the uber star jock who suddenly loses to some little kid.

So YOU'RE the reason there are shortages of fresh water in the developing world. Nice going.

Um, I can only take credit for water shortages which may or may not have occurred in central Indiana from the years roughly 1983-1997.

But seriously, those grenade shaped water balloons that could be filled humongous and broke easy. Man they were awesome.

I know! Shhh, don't tell anyone, but I still fondly recall an epic, neighborhood-wide water fight when I was a kid in the 70's. Hoses blasting from the tree-house, wash-tubs stocked with those grenade balloons, it was glorious. But it was California, and when we had the droughts in '76 and '77 such things were forbidden forever.

I'm only moderately athletic, rowed crew in college but wasn't brilliant at it, etc. and know that my natural talents lie more in intellectual activities and so that's probably why I worked on them more, but where do you get the ego to think intellectual gifts are intrinsically better than physical?

The sheer chutzpah of acting like kids who are born 'smarter' are somehow better than kids who are born more 'athletic' is just insane, as if the two are somehow opposite ends of a spectrum. They're completely distinct characteristics. Kids should be praised for either or both, teaching them to love what they can do well so that they'll work to improve those things and hopefully achieve good or great things. Telling athletic kids that they suck because they aren't smart enough is no better than telling smart kids they suck because they're not athletic enough.

I think you may be taking too harsh a view- I think her point is less "sports suck" than " "there are or ought to be other ways to teach phys ed than team sports".

To use an academic comparison, most high schools have different levels of math- if you suck at math, you get put in a basic class, if you excel, they place you in advanced calculus. In gym, it's one-size-fits-all, and, unfortunately, what works for an athlete can be very alienating to someone lacking in physical prowess. As one of those people (not yet thirty & I've never been able to touch my toes in my life) a good class on stretching and some kind of progressive strength &/or endurance training would have been a lot more useful than five laps around the gym, gasping, followed by half an hour of trying to avoid a puck to the balls in floor hockey,

We've tried to set different academic levels so all kids get at least a basic education, why not try the same with phys ed?

I spent my whole life doing sports; starting with pee-wee football at age 6 and was on some team until I graduated from college. Having said that, I can't believe how bad that system was for teaching even the basics of fitness. It was more 'some old angry guy yelling at you to beat the snot out of some other guy'. Yeah - we spent time 'lifting weights' or 'running' but it was poorly structured and designed to be miserable.